The Lurvely Zoë Halstead And Other Matters

**I meant to post this yesterday (and the day before) but Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day has come upon me a little quick and I wanted to get the amazing LYLYSD skein raffle (there's still time!) on the go asap. So I'm posting two blogs in one as it were. Because I believe you need both in your life.

Love. xx**

Zoë came to see me t'other day at the shop and she was as lovely in person as she seems on her facebook page and her blog. We were just confirming plans for the big day on Saturday and generally getting to know each other. I sent her a few questions to answer that I thought you might find interesting and here they are unedited: 

Beautiful, talented and lovely. Gah! How annoying!

'Hiya Zoe, how's it going?'

I'm fine thanks, I hope you are too?

'When did you first learn to knit and crochet?'

I was taught to knit by my gran when I was 5 years old. She lived next door to us so was always on hand if I got stuck. My mum, auntie and cousins also knitted and sewed and so I was surrounded by people who made stuff!
I can't remember exactly how old I was when I learnt to crochet but probably around 20-21. I do know that I taught myself using a Good Housekeeping book of my mums (which I still have) - this was before online tutorials so you either learnt from a book or asked someone to teach you!

'Horrid question, but which do you prefer?'

Oooh that's mean, like asking me to choose between my children! I would probably have to say knitting though. It was my first love after all and I'm still slightly more confident designing knitting than crochet.

'How did you get into designing?'

From very young I always wanted to be a designer. So after A levels I did a year's Foundation course in art and design followed by a degree in Constructed Textile Design (knit and weave) at Manchester Polytechnic, specialising in knit in my final year. After graduating I returned to my hometown of Loughborough and worked for 6 years as a designer in the knitwear manufacturing and spinning industries in Leicester. In 1998 I made the sideways move to DMC designing needlework and craft kits. Whilst there, through a colleague and a case of being in the right place at the right time, I was given the opportunity to write my first book 'Knitted & Felted Toys'. After that, I continued working part time for DMC and freelancing in my spare time until May 2008 when I took voluntary redundancy to freelance full time.

'Talk us through an average day for you'

I'm quite lucky in that every day can be different but most days usually include some of the following:
After doing the school run, I usually check my emails, Facebook Page messages, blog comments and Twitter feed whilst eating my breakfast. I'll then reply to emails and messages and do anything that has been requested.
If I have designs to do I'll sit at the table with all my inspiration material and sketch them out. I then scan the finished drawings and lay them up on design sheets in a desktop publishing program on my pc. The design sheets are usually emailed to the client but occasionally, if I've done swatches, they'll be printed out and posted.
If I've got patterns to write I'll try and do these in the morning too as I'm more able to cope with the gradings and maths involved! I write all my instructions by hand in a notebook and then write them up on the pc. If the designs are going to be knitted by my knitters and not me then I write the whole pattern and send it to them. If I'm going to knit the item, I tend to write the instructions for one part at a time as I often change things as I knit!
Afternoons are usually spent knitting, crocheting or making up designs. I like to sit on the sofa and catch up on TV whilst I knit and crochet. If I've got deadlines looming, I can quite often knit all day.
A lot of my time can also be taken up with sorting and ordering yarn, bagging up yarn for projects and trips to the Post Office!
After the afternoon school run I'll sometimes carry on working around my boys depending on their needs and where they need to be for various clubs and activities.
In the evenings I'll either do more knitting/crochet in front of the TV or update my blog and Facebook Page.

'How did you get to work with King Cole?'

When I was working on my toy book I wanted a supplier of a good, all-round DK yarn to knit the dolls with and King Cole's yarns fitted the bill. After my second book (Knitted & Felted Children's Clothes) was published King Cole got in touch to see if I would be interested in designing for them and my first designs were two kids Aran leaflets 3143 and 3144 and two kids Splash leaflets 3145 and 3146 in early 2009. And I've been designing for them ever since!

'What's your favourite King Cole yarn and why?'

I really like Merino Blend DK (and the other Merino Blend weights) because it's a lovely rounded, plump, machine washable, 100% wool yarn that's great for stitch definition and colour work. I like the natural elasticity you get with wool yarn and this is a good, affordable all rounder.

'What's next on the horizon?'

At the moment I'm working on Christmas Knits Book 2 and lots of other Christmas things for King Cole, all to be ready for the beginning of June! After that it's on to next Spring and a lot of crochet designs. :)
'Why do you think local yarn shops are so important?'

It's very hard to tell from a printed shade card or online exactly what colour a yarn is, how it feels and how well it will sit in the colourway you're thinking of. I need to be able to squish the yarn, run it over my fingers and bundle it together with other colours and you can only do this in a yarn shop with the actual yarn! Also, local yarn shops provide so much more than just the tools and materials for knitting and crochet; where else can you get technical know how to help you out with that tricky pattern? Advice on yarn quantities, substitutions and colours that suit? Or just a friendly like-minded individual to talk to? All these things and more are in your local yarn shop and you're supporting a small business too.

'Descibe your perfect local yarn shop for us'

I've always had a dream to have my own yarn shop and whenever I see an empty shop in a nice area I usually say 'that'd make a nice yarn shop' so I have a very clear idea of my perfect yarn shop: Lots of yarn in lots of colours and on shelves so that you can touch it - it goes without saying really but I'm sometimes surprised at how little yarn, and how little of the colour range of that yarn, some shops stock or it's in bags where you can't touch it!; lots of patterns to support the yarns stocked; a table and chairs so that you can sit and take your time choosing yarn and patterns or just sit and chat; friendly, welcoming staff that don't give you derisory looks when you plunge your hands and/or face into the yarn - sometimes I have to sniff or stroke the yarn against my face, don't judge!; staff that don't mind when you want to buy just one ball of lots of different colours rather than a garment's worth; and staff that will patiently talk through a knitting/crochet problem you're having without being patronising!


*******

Can you see how nice she is?!?! She's coming from about one o'clock on Saturday to just join in and generally chat. She'll sign her patterns if you have some (but I'm too disorganised to have got her books in... the webshop thing really got on top of me last week so I'm sorry Zoë) but I am MOST looking forward to seeing the next Christmas book when it comes out in August seeing as the last one was just so amazing!!!

And here are some of the bits that she's designed for King Cole including my favourite kid's dress that they've ever published:

 And look at these cute little things that have appeared in magazines: 

All in King Cole wool. Marvelous. I am so looking forward to welcoming her as our guest on Saturday and I know you lot will be too. Be friendly ey, and slightly less mad than usual? We've got to make a good impression... ;)

Love Eleanor.  xxxx

P.s. If you want to hear my rambling, messing up words, mishearing and umming and ahhing about Love Your Yarn Shop Day on the radio then click the link here and fast forward to around 1.46. You'll not be disappointed. 

**********************************

And now for the second part of the blog... 

 We have some truly amazing stuff available on the day. For a lot of you it'll be the first time seeing the new colours in the Riot DK, the Riot Chunky and the Zig Zag 4ply. And now I've got the patterns on the internet you can peruse those to make your choice for the day:

Click here to get the deets on the individual patterns. There are some beauts and this is deffo my favourite: 

 

Amazing - yes? I don't think you need to answer that... ;)

 We also have these beauts:

Of course, you know all about that already don't you? Click here to get your chance to buy on the raffle.

And then we have this:

Which is a LOAD of Truly Hooked wool on general sale. Including some more raaaaaaaaaaainbows! Some in two 50g and some in 100g balls. I will be getting those on the internet after the day but I want to give the local customers a go first as that seems only fair on Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day, ey? Are you going to your local yarn shops? Do you have them? Are they doing exclusive things for the events!?!?!? Tell me! I'm excited!!!!

And then we have this big bag of goodies: 

This is from the beautiful and talented and dead funny Jem Weston. It's all a load of lovely yarn, just bits and bobs and it'll be a lucky dip type affair on the day. You might pick a beaut! You might also pick the pink fun fur... ;) She'll be there tooooo!

And then I went cheap shelf shopping t'other day for a load of biscuits and chocolate and stuff. In date, don't worry. Amazing.

And then I'm doing a lucky dip type thing like we do at all of the birthdays. So you choose your yarn/needles/patterns/whatever and then once you're about to pay you stick your hand in for a lucky dip and you might win 100% off the order, 50% off the order, 10% off the order, double points, a go at the lucky dip wool bag or even.... nothing at all... Haha. I have to sort this out tomorrow. And tidy. Argh stress!

That's it!! I am so looking forward to this. Apparently we've been in/are going in the Post too and we've been on the radio. It's going to be just a really nice relaxed day of giving thanks for all the wonderful things that have happened over the last 3.5years. Ahhhhhhhh.

Love Eleanor. xxx

This Is Important.

Did you see this photo???

This is exclusive yarn to Knit Nottingham from Truly Hooked on the Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day on Saturday. You can only get it here and you can only get it on the day and there are only THESE FOUR! It's gone a bit mad in since I put the photo up on the Facebook page and Twitter and I've been getting messages ever since asking how to get it.

Now, I would feel terrible if you lot missed out on the chance to get your greasy mitts on these so I'm going to borrow an idea from Vezza herself and do a raffle. The idea is that you can buy as many tickets as you like for your chance to win the colour of your choice. The tickets will cost £2 each and you can buy as many or as few as you like - they will be specific to the colour you choose (so you could put £2 on each colour, costing you £8 and you might win all four! I call that BOOOOOOOM!).

So, from left to right we have: Mermaid, Peacock, Berries and Tequila Sunrise. In fact, here you go:

So, I've put the tickets up for sale on the webshop. Please click here. You can also phone me on (0115) 9474239 and you can do it at the shop.

The webshop and phone entries will stop at around 10am on Saturday the 3rd of May (I just know that the shop is going to be mad and I don't want the stress... and I might be drunk... maybe... probably...). You can still buy your tickets on the day at the shop until around 6pm and we'll put all of the entries onto a spreadsheet and then use a random number generator to pick a winner for each category.

Got it!? Good!

GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO!

Love Eleanor. xxxx

Do As I Say, Not As I Do.

Hmm. Dye lots. So I kind of think they matter and I kind of think they don't. When companies dye a big batch of yarn together they call it a dye lot. The take up of dye can be affected by the yarn base used, the weather or atmosphere on the day, minute changes in the amounts of dye/water, the way the dyer feels. All sorts of things. Companies often tell us that dye lots don't matter because it's all done by machine but one lot of wool from one lot of sheep will be very different from another lot. Imagine a sheep living in Australia versus one living in the Cotswolds. Not that the fibre for our wool is from Australia or the Cotswolds, that wouldn't be Knit Nottingham prices, but of course a sheep living in a dry, arid, desert-y type area is going to produce different fibre from a sheep living in lush, leafy, green England even if they're the same breed and even if they come from the same stock originally. It just makes sense. Think about how much lovelier your hair is when you eat well and treat it right (note to self...).

I know embarrasingly little about the way that yarn is sorted and processed on a commercial level but it's my understanding that it's basically graded by the wool board and then the yarn is mixed together within it's grades. So you wouldn't, unless that was your USP, buy yarn from a specific farm or flock or even area but wool within one category. Which means that the fibre is much more standard than my Australia/Cotswolds example above - slightly variations such as from a wet summer or a hard winter in a specific area - are kind of ironed out. But of course there are going to be variations. Same with cotton, bamboo, alpaca - anything natural. I'm trying to think about what might cause variation within an acrylic fibre but I can't. I'm no expert.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, even if the dying process is automated there area always going to be variations in the fibre. Which is a long winded way of saying that dye lots matter.

Sometimes different dye lots look and work the same. Sometimes they don't. Mostly you can see that in the ball but sometimes you can't. My advice, if you have an errant ball, is always to try and use it for edging or something separate. For a baby's cardi you'll probably get the fronts or sleeves out of one ball. The seams in the garment, between the bits knitting in different dye lots, make any differences look like shadows. It really works. The other trick, if you have about half and half different dye lots, is to work two rows of one dye lot and two rows of the other alternating for the whole thing. The two rows mean that you don't have to break off the yarn each time so it's really no extra sewing in ends and if there is a difference in dye lot, the stripes carry on throughout the thing so they look like a design feature. Ahhh! And finally, if you have just the one ball and you're not sure it's that different, then wait until you have about half a ball of the last stuff left and then two and two stripe as before with the new ball until the old one has gone and then you can carry on with the new one. Yes?

They're my tricks anyway and they work. And lots of you have tried them and they work for you.

All of this depends on you actually checking dye lots (the general you... it's usually me that ends up checking them for people). This is something that I did do on the project in question and then I carried on using the one ball in the markedly different dye lot anyway. Because I'm an idiot and I don't care about making two shawls exactly the same in less than a week. Why would I!?!?

Remember I talked about how a customer had given me my next project in this blog over here? Well, it was a commission really. I'm making one of the lovely Sues a shawl for a wedding that she's going to in a couple of weeks. With my holiday looming, the Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day coming up and a to-do list that I've made myself as long as both arms and Boyf's too I knew I wouldn't be able to knit her one so I offered to do a Fantasm like the one I made in Verity's Yarn:

It's nice isn't it!? And I got that one done in less than 24 hours. But probably only because I LOVED the yarn and couldn't wait to see it worked up. But I knew, even if that kind of mental obsession wasn't there, I could get one worked up in a week with time to spare to block. We decided on the beautiful Cygnet Truly Wool Rich 4ply in the Dove Grey and she wanted it just a little bigger than the one in the window - a proper shawl. So I started on Thursday evening with a 4mm hook. And it was good. I took no photos of the process because it was one of those ridiculously quick I don't want to stop I just want to make kind of projects. And then on Friday, as I was travelling home, I started a new ball. Did a few stitches. Stopped. Carried on. Stopped. And finally, accepted the inevitable. The bloody dye lots were different. I'd done so much on the first ball that I couldn't rip out but I also couldn't give her this as a commission. So I carried on. Thinking that I could over-dye in a mixture of blues and greens because the flowery bits kind of look like a peacock tail don't they? I thought I might pass it on to Verity to dye but then I thought about how much fun I'd had when I dyed the yarn for this shawl:

 

It's the first version of Elise Shawl that I did and it started my love affair with quick, simple and effective crocheted shawls. 

So I decided to give it a go myself. I think I finished the shawl that night and started the next one the day after. That still looks like this:

It needs to be done for Saturday but I'm just about half a row away from finishing the final repeat of the 'pattern pattern' and then I'm just going to finish the rest of the ball with ch5, dc into the chsp all across for ever more. So that'll be quick and easy and I'm planning to introduce Boyf to the joys of blocking tonight. He will LOVE having a wet thing and loads of pins in his bed! LOVE! Haha. 

Now, usually I'd want to split that part of the blog and the next part of the blog into two but I have things to write about for the rest of the week and I'm dead excited about this so I'm going to carry on. Apologies for the essay... 

So, I messaged Verity who gave me all sorts of advice about how to dye with food colouring. You can find all sorts of info about it on the web but she's done it a lot and she's my friend and therefore I get a free load of brill info from the horse's mouth as it were. She told me about vinegar. You need to soak the thing in vinegar before you dye it to help it take up the dye. I didn't have a lot of vinegar so I used this stuff:

Well diluted. I guess you're meant to leave it for half an hour or so, so that all of the fibres are properly soaked but I didn't have the patience for that. Oh no. I'm guessing I left it for about 15/20 minutes whilst I emptied the dishwasher, filled it and then searched for the cake dyes... This is all we had:

I really was hoping for some blue and green but we work with what we've got don't we? Therefore I used the red, as there was the most there. In my head I was going to put a stronger solution on the flowery bits and then a weaker solution on the rest of the shawl to make those pop but that just didn't happen. I ended up pouring the whole solution, diluted, into a cake tin to wiggling the shawl around a bit. It looked like this: 

Which was a portent of what was coming - deffo no bright, blood red which is kind of what I hoped... Then came time for the 'saran wrap'. When I was dying first time, I came across that phrase, which is the American way of saying cling film and assumed it meant like a thin gauze-y material. I've no idea why. I've also no idea why I didn't just google it seeing as my instructions were from the internet. I ended up using my hair dying towel then and half of the colour went on there rather than the yarn... but this time I had Verity to remind me that it was cling film. It's harder to wrap a shawl in cling film than you might imagine and it ended up looking like a blood bath in my utility room...

 

But I did it. And then it was time to put it into the microwave. Vezza said about three 4/5 minute bursts but I didn't ask what heat level or whether to let it cool in between. So I watched for the first four minutes:

That's my casually interested face. And then for the second four minutes I did some crochet in another room. Then I head a bang and this happened: 

Cue frantic whatsapping to Vezza. All was fine but it did look like a placenta. I put it in for another two minutes and then took it out and put it in the fridge to cool for a bit before rinsing until the dye (kind of) went clear. I'm far too impatient for all of this. Dying deffo isn't for me.

Then I went upstairs to block it, hoping that it would be done for this morning. I tried a slightly different style this time. I put the bottom point at the corner of the bed and slowly pinned the edges to their side of the bed, bit by bit, and then afterwards I came to pin the middle bit and across the top, stretching gently. It worked much better than my usual way which is to start with the top and then stretch the point to within an inch of it's life, working and stretching towards the pins already in place at the top. I find that the original pins often pop out of place and I can't stretch the point into a proper triangle at the bottom, it's kind of longer and pointier whereas I like a corner of a square kind of effect. Does that make sense? Anyway, this is what it looked like:

 

Which is probably the worst photo ever in terms of colour, composition and focus but it does show what it looks like. And how I'm a sloppy blocker in terms of getting the points even but they'll relax a little anyway and if anybody notices then they're too close - step away. 

This is a pretty good representation of the colour. It's maybe a little dark but it's like amethyst isn't it? Which is deffo not a colour I would ever make a shawl in but it certainly is one that I appreciate and I'm glad I've now got a shawl in it. :) I kind of didn't think of the effect of working the red over the grey. I assumed I wouldn't get a bright bright red but maybe more cherry-ish. Dee will be laughing at me here, I really have no idea when it comes to colours (but I'm still right about kingfisher/teal...). And this is what it looked like this morning: 

Love! Apart from my tired face. I need some make up desperately. Blurgh.

And now we come back to the do as I say, not as I do. The dye lots still show. I can't photograph it very well but I've tried. It's less about the colour I think and more about the texture which means that one of the dye lots (the original) has taken up the dye in a much nicer way, it much more blue-y purple whereas the second dye lot has an almost orange tone which doesn't work that well with the amethyst. I do think that if I'd have managed my blue and green higgle-de-piggle-de idea that that would have been much better hidden. However, I also know that nobody's looking at dye lots and if they are, again, they're too close and need to step. away. thank. you. very. much. 

 

Can you see how the one further away is much less hairy? Texture deffo shows up better in the photos but I guess that the colour is affected by the texture so maybe that's actually the same but the texture makes it different? Ooooooh, I don't know. And I don't care. 

So - so as I say, not as I do:

Dye lots matter. 

Over-dying won't change that. 

When you've got it wrong, stop worrying about it, they're all just too close.

And that's my lesson for today over folks.

Love, Eleanor. xxxxxx

PRODUCTION!

So. Today has been productive! After like a week and a half of non-production... I'm not entirely sure why today has gone so well but I think it might be to do with the fact that Boyf woke me up early and made me a proper breakfast with hash browns and everything. What a man.

I was in town pretty early so I managed to nip into the Bead Shop to pick up these stunners to put on a top secret project that I'm designing:

Then when I got into work the webshop was finally back up and running! I still don't know what went wrong with it. Yesterday I was e-mailing back and forth with my hosts who said that they could take it back to the last backup but only if I could verify who I was and that took ages because it relied on my having the last four digits of a debit card I had like two years ago... I found it in the end and that was enough but they did then send me a message that I received this morning saying that there was nothing that they could do, the webshop was still down and I had to do something weird (perhaps with the php if that makes any sense to anybody!?!?) but magically and miraculously it's back up and I attribute that to the fact that I try to be a good person and I did some volunteering once. I've been all the way through to make an order and it worked for me - do let me know if you're struggling though.

Once that was up I could get on and finish our new style mailing list - there were lots of links that I needed to put in that relied on the webshop actually running... It appears that we have some problems with that though, including, but not limited to, the fact that the lovely lilac colour that I so carefully picked out is turning up beeeeeeeeeige for some people. BLURGH. I don't want beige on my mailing list! (Sorry Elizabeth... ;) ). Anyway, I'm waiting for more feedback, especially on the layout because it looks all wacked up on my e-mail but not when I download it as a separate file. I also have big plans to have a list of downloadable newsletters on the website so that people can see what they're signing up for but I've got to work out how to do that (and I will!).

Then I had a load of customers - thank the Lord!!! It's been mega slow around here (students have gone, bank holidays, nice weather, gardens, payday hasn't happened, the knitting apocalypse has come and everybody's lost their fingers... you know, the usual...) and the internet really keeps us going at this time of year, but without that and without customers I have been an unhappy bunny. And while the customers were here I managed to finish the knitting on Vezza's socks. This is the best photo I've got at the mo:

But there will be more, perhaps on here, perhaps just for my Rav sooner or later. There are plenty of ends to sew in once I find my scissors. One of those customers also left me with my next project - after I've done these socks completely - and I am very excited even though I'm desperate to start the socks in the yarn that Verity gave me. Blurgh.

And then, once the busy-ness had died down a bit, I got a couple of blogs written for the thing that I was on about a couple of days ago. Much more on that later - promise!

AND THEN! I remembered that I hadn't told you about this!!!

Which is Davina's version of the Summer Dress. (I don't think I've got a good photo of Davina yet but I do like how haughty she looks there :) :) ). But it isn't as simple as that... ooooooooh no. Her summer dress started off like this:  

Which eagle eye readers will recognise as the Cottonsoft in Cherry, Jade and Oyster (can we all just take a minute to notice that that is a link to a webshop, my webshop, and it works!!!). Davina was pretty sure than she wanted the Cherry and then we had to pick colours that worked together. AND I THINK THEY DO! But Davina thought that it made her look like she was dancing around a maypole. Fair enough. So, she's given the half done dress to me! And she chose her own new colours, out of the Bamboo Cotton (ANOTHER LINK THAT WORKS THANK YOU VERY MUCH) in brown (perhaps called Earth), orange (deffo called Crimson, and that's definitely a crime against colour naming) and teal (Opal). Notice that two of those colours aren't on the internet and that's because they're new and I haven't done them yet. Blurgh. I'll knock them on today, probably (probably not now... more customers... time flies.... tomorrow!). And she liked the new colours so much that she got the second dress done in like two bloody days! Or something ridiculous, the first one took a few weeks maybe?

Anyway, I've got the new dress now, it needs probably another two repeats and then I can wear it and everybody's happy! What a nice story. :):):)

And then, to top of my productive day, I've now gone and written a blog ain't I!??!!? Well done me!

Love Eleanor. :)

A lovely weekend and a broken webshop. Argh!

Perhaps this eight blog posts a month thing isn't working like it should? I get dead excited at the beginning of the month and then I write my eight posts and a few more and then... nothing... Ugh. At least it was only five days and not the months I'd been leaving you with recently... I think this can be a catchup type blog and Boyf is getting at me to show you the goodies he brought me back from his jollies but I forgot to photograph them (again) so that'll have to be another day.

Shall I start with Friday?

 I've been super ill. Like, not deathly deathly ill but pretty bad with a massive side order of shat-knacked. So I was going to take the nephew swimming on Friday but, and I hate to say it but this was happily, the swimming baths were all closed. So, I did a tiny little bit of accounting and had a nap instead. But then, I got up to some v. exciting things. Here's a little sneak peek:

Mwahaha! Can you guess where I was?! Yes, yes, yes. I was at Vezza's. National Love Your Local Yarn Shop Day is a-coming and I've got Verity making some veeeeeeeery interesting grads for me. But because she's now knitting her own blanks: 

It's taking a bit longer than it used to. So I helped her ball up some skeins, using a ball winder: 

 

And then knit up the blanks on a knitting loom pictured above. It's long and boring work and it bloody kills your arms. One day I'm going to go around for dying (I haven't told her this...) but I think I'll love that part of it. I think she probably loves it too but I'll be 'helping' not just stealing her favourite bits. 

Then I spent some time smooching and admiring.... Ahhhhh. 

 

And then, at the bottom of that massive box I found the skein on my dreeeeeeeeams! I can't remember what she's going to call it. But it's a rainbow in 12 parts around the skein. You can't tell that once it's balled up and I, for one, cannot wait to see what it looks like knitted up! 

 Buuuuut. There's a spanner in the works, I'm knitting these:

Which, up until the moment that I laid eyes on my new 12 colour rainbow, was the best yarn that I'd ever seen. It's one of the Two Of A Kind Grad Yarns but something went wrong during the process and it ended up with a load of knots along the skein so I'm knocking up some socks for Vezza and I do love it but seriously... I wanna knit MY socks. NOW!

By the by, there's nothing I can do with that apart from plod along. On Saturday I spent a fair bit of time knitting and chatting with customers so that by ten o'clock the first of the rainbow socks was done. On Sunday I had a lovely lesson teaching the second Learn To Crochet class - not much time for selfish knitting during a lesson, more's the pity...

On Monday, the weather was bloody miserable when we were woken up at about six. So we cancelled some plans to go bowling and sat around watching Game Of Thrones and knitting/crochet. But by nine o'clock or so the weather had turned  for the better and we were getting restless so we thought about going to Wollaton Park where two lovely friends were doing a craft fair (hi Steph and Rebecka! Hope it went well!) but we agreed that it wasn't enough of a challenge. Then we thought about Newstead Abbey but thought that wasn't countryside-y enough. In the end we agreed on Dale Abbey which is a ruined abbey just on the other side of Stapleford. It's in the middle of a picturesque village in proper countryside countryside if you know what I mean.

Five bloody miles. That's how long I walked. Up hill and down dale. Bear in mind that I'm not that fit in the first place but on top of that I've spent the last week on my deathbed and barely moved a muscle - certainly no muscles that didn't need moving... He also lied to me about how high we had to travel - he told me iis was 53 feet at the highest. It wasn't, it was 53 metres! That's three times as high!!!! And more, it's not just up 53 metres - it's up 53 metres, down, 20, up 20, down, 45, up 32... blah blah blah. Up and bloody down. But I must admit, it was worth it to do some sock knitting here:

What a view! It also meant that I saw and climbed my first stile since I was a child but apparently, the photo won't upload here... You know what I stile looks like though?

I saw the most beautiful bush in the world.

I had THE MOST AMAZING PICNIC EVER! Seriously. That tomato was the best tomato I've ever had and we had real tea, brewed in a tea pot, and drunk in proper cups:

Finished off with creme eggs. Ahhh Easter. I know what you're all about. 

Anyway, we found the Abbey - it's peaking right in the centre of that photo above the bush, behind a tree. That's all it was. One side of a building with no glass. And there are bushes and electric fences all the way around it so you can't see where the abbey would have been even and I actually took a video from over the wall and there were bloody animals - maybe cows - living there. COWS IN AN ABBEY!

And then we stopped off at a lovely cafe for ice cream and Elderflower drink. Lurvely.

Not enough knitting though. But I made up for that last night when I dreamt of a stitch pattern last night and I've just done a bit of texting and calling of my contacts and I might be publishing it through somebody else not just this blog and rav! IMAGINE!

I also dreamed about another opportunity that I forgot about because I am the worst business woman ever. It's a series of blogs for somebody else about what it is to be a yarn shop owner and I think I'd enjoy it, as long as it's not too often, perhaps once a month. So I've got back in contact with the lady and I'll see where that goes.

And on top of that I've been inspired to get the mailing list back on the go. Maybe this month! Maybe. We'll see. It's been a few months - I don't think we've done one since Christmas and it was always June that did it before so it'll certainly be a different tone... as it were... slightly less formal...

All of this comes from how slow last week and this have been! It's those bloody students leaving us to see their families. Can you imagine! And on top of that it's been nice weather. Ugh. I hate this nice weather. Today, miserable and rainy as it is, suits me much better. Ahh well, I never worry about slow bits now because I know you lot will be back in when projects are finished and the gardens are growing as they should... Especially when you see what we've got on order to turn up this week!

HAHAHAHA! AMAZING YES! These are new Riot DK's and Riot Chunkies and Zig Zag 4plies! AMAZING!

....Although I can't link those for you because apparently our webshop's gone down... I am well over today. Blurgh.

Right, I'm off to find all of the information for the the mailing list because if I can't do webshopping today then I'm going to bloody do something. Ugh. Can we all cross our fingers that the webshop is back up and running tomorrow? In t'meantime - click here to sign up to the new and improved mailing list (when I've done it...).

And I really am off.

Love Eleanor.

P.s. I'm in too much of a mood now to read through this so I'm sure there's loads of spelling mistakes etc. apologies in advance!

The Struggle Is Real.

I am always going on about how I'm a fairisle knitter. Always. And I love it, I really seriously do. I have opinions about it and everything. But I have been slaaaaaaaaaaaain by this bloody pattern:

The Viking Boats Cardigan.

I first wrote about it on the 5th of April 2012. That's pretty much two years to the day. And I'm sure I discovered it before then! I've been really pleased with my lack of startitis lately but to be honest, the finishitis hasn't really stuck around because the eight-petal flower jumper is a bit of a slog and I kind of re-lost the enthusiasm for it (I don't doubt it will be back one day!). So, the other day I was reminded of this and I thought to myself - I'll just print it out and do a bit of translating. Hear me readers, the pattern is in NORWEGIAN! 

But it's not as bad as it sounds... Actually, it's pretty much all charted. It's a drop sleeve so the fronts and back are basic straightish rectangles and the arms are the same with just a little increasing:

 

 The Norwegian bits tell you to cast on and it's a lot of stitches so you kinda know it's fronts and back together. Then there are words and then a new stitch count so you assume that you do some increasing to the new stitch count. Somewhere in between those two instructions is the term '4cm' so you obvs do something for 4cm and on the original pattern there's no rib so it'll be a hem. To be fair, if you're a fairly experienced knitter, then it's going to be pretty straight forward. At some point they talk about 'cutting the knitting' so there's a steek in there somewhere which might put some experience knitters off but I've decided to work my pattern back and forth anyway, which I generally hate for fairisle but I don't fancy steeking a 70% acrylic yarn like the Moods DK even though you could, I tend to think it's just not that wise... So a steek for the neckline isn't necessary. 

I was also going to change the yarn to a 4ply. As it is the smallest size is like 48" bust finished and the biggest is like 50-something quite high sounding but in reality, the whole of that chart is the whole of the jumper so the rows matter as it were. Would be relatively easy to work out how many more rows you want and perhaps change the bird into a dragon  for a few more rows or perhaps add more of the bottom and top patterns but I didn't want to do any more maths than I really had to because I am lazy. Also, a snuggly DK fairisle cardi will come in dead useful. :) 

I am going to change the arm shaping though - I contemplated a yoke but I couldn't work out how to do that without lowering the main pattern so that all yoke decreases were made in a more modular colour pattern and that again, involves maths. So I think I've plumped for a raglan. I worked out roughly how many stitches I wanted at the shoulder and drew a zig zag line down from there so I know roughly when to stop. At that point I'm going to probably do both sleeves and join it all together to finish. Maybe. I checked my workings out once I'd got to the point where I'd done the first band of patterns - they measured a pretty perfect 4" on my knitting and a pretty perfect 0.75" on the chart. So every 0.75" on the chart is 4" of my jumper and that means I'm going to have about 15" before I start my armhole shaping. This is fine, I would usually have between 13 and 14 inches so it fits with the slightly baggy thing going on. Yes. Happy. 

However:

Can you see where I went wrong? Hmmm. I bloody can. On the second row of 'diamonds' I missed the second to last row which means that the second diamonds are 'off'. I actually, totally, definitely thought about ripping back and then I like bugger that for a game of soldiers. I'd already done the first row of the proper pattern and that had made me want to rip my eyeballs out so I wasn't about to take it out. It's staying. It's 'handmade'. 

And why did it make me want to rip my eyeballs out?

This. Is. Why. 

The chart is tiny!!! I didn't think it would be a problem because it's also very clear from afar but the boxes are soooo tiny they hurt my eyes. No problem, I thought, I'll photograph a small part of them and that'll blow them up enough for me to see (I more often than not have patterns on my phone now anyway) but no! That doesn't work because the 'x's aren't all in their own boxes - they're ever so slightly off, and if one's off then the next one's off a bit more and if that one's off a bit more then the next one's off a bit more and so on and so on. Ugh. SO. I think I'm going to have to do myself a chart on the computer and then either download it to my phone or print it. Whatever. The chart is a mirror image though, so only one will do and I can, for example, chart all the way up to where I think my armholes will be and then do the arms (which won't need recharting because it's v. simple) and then spend some time charting some more.

I have deffo gone wrong in the first bit of it, to the point where I'm thinking, bugger it, I'm just going to join it and made a jumper instead. But I've got to persevere because this is like a knitting DREAM of mine!!!!

And anyway, it's what I'm going to do today because I've done all of the work I set aside and I'm still pretty snotty from the killer lurgy and my mood, and therefore the shop's mood, will improve no end once I've set this up properly. 

Love Eleanor, 

xxx